Customer: How do booksellers go about selling and making money
in the eighteenth century?

Tonson: Making money involves four steps of consideration, and
a number of initial payments have to be made before a profit can
be earned. First, there is the procuring of the copy of the text
from the author. The author receives a payment based on the expectation
of profit. For example, John Nourse paid Alex Blackwell the high
price of 150 pounds for a 1/3 share in 500 copies of his wife
Elizabeth Blackwell's Curious Herbal, 80 copies of which
had already been published. After procurment, the seller has to
produce a certain number of copies based on projected sales. Though
often evaded, the Stamp Act, starting in 1712, placed a 2 shilling
tax on every copy of the publication made, which of course has
to be calculated into sales accounting. Once the copies are made,
promoting becomes the main issue. Two shilling ads in newspapers,
printed proposals describing the work, and actual free samples
from the work are the major forms of advertising.20
You can visit a small gallery of ads here.

An expense for the circulation of the proposals and samples needs
to be factored into the overall accounting scheme as well. There
often exists a great dichotomy in how much promotion goes into
which work. For instance, D. Soyer paid printer William Strahan
2 pounds, 5 shillings for 2000 copies of proposals for a translation
of Blainville's Travels, while Joseph Davidson spent just
4 guineas for 5000 copies of proposals and specimen pages of the
works of Horace and Virgil in Latin and English.21
It all depends on the purpose and pocket of the seller. Other
forms of promoting include ads on the blue paper covers of books
and special offers of premiums from magazines. The final aspect
of bookselling is distribution, which is done either by one seller
or through agents or a warehouse. Once costs for all these have
been considered the seller figures out cost per unit, and then
with the number of units sold, pays off the expenses and takes
the rest for profit, which is standard business practice.22

Customer: It sounds like the bookseller does more than just sell
books then.

Tonson: That's exactly right: a bookseller acts
as publisher, editor, promoter, distributor, and seller all at
once. Sellers like me are all over the place in terms of duties
and tasks. Speaking of promotions, booksellers are not afraid
to advertise themselves and anything they are selling. For example,
Shirly Woolmer of Exeter advertised in the Exeter Flying Post
on November 15, 1787 that he "has now 20,000 volumes
of books on sale by catalogue with their prices," and he
goes on to encourage readers to bring in their own books to him
for eventual sale:"Utmost value in ready money given for
libraries and parcels of books-likewise books exchanged."24
Barnabas Thorn advertised for his bookshop in the Old Exeter
Journal of June 12, 1772 with the following:

At the shop of Mr. Thorn may be had, books in all arts and sciences,
memorandum books of all sorts, accompt books, letter cases, writing
paper of all sorts, magazines, warrants of all sorts, viz. land
tax, window tax and highway &c. all sorts of paper hangings
of the newest patterns, with every other article in the stationary
way: likewise all sorts of patent medicines.25

This ad speaks to the vast volume of items that
booksellers sell and how they definitely desire to get their name
out in the public sphere and distinguish themselves from others,
considering the vast amount of booksellers around in the period.
In addition, successful sellers have to be quite aggressive. For
instance, Robert Dodsby actively sought out quality manuscripts,
as well as encouraging certain writers like the poet Sherstone
to write, almost in a mentor capacity.26

Customer: What should I know about 1732? I heard it was an important
year for publishing and selling.

Tonson: 1732 was an extremely significant year in bookselling,
as the industry experienced a huge boom, due primarily to growth
in literacy and economic prosperity. All aspects of the business
were profiting in 1732: the sellers, the printers, the papermakers,
the pressers, typesetters, and warehouses.27
Printers were even selling their own work: Thomas Salmon published
his own Modern History monthly for 14 years. However, one
group was not profiting quite as well in 1732: the authors. Authors
had to hope for at least a second edition of their book in order
to turn a profit; otherwise, the seller took all the left over
money, aside from the initial fee given to the author. So 1732
was basically the peak of economic prosperity in the book industry,
but arguably the most important figure in the process was not
seeing quite as much of that success. The Grub Street culture
best exemplified the struggle of many writers. Grub Street, the
name Pope and Swift gave to the London subworld of writing, included
many struggling writers who actually had to get jobs in book factories
to make ends meet.28
Johnson summed up the typical Grub Street author with the following
from his Life of Mr. Richard Savage:

He lodged as much by accident as he dined. He composed his
verses in his head while walking the streets, stopping in shops
to cadge pencil and paper to jot them down. He passed the night
sometimes in mean houses, which are set open at night to any casual
wanderers, sometimes in cellars, among the riot and filth of the
meanest and most profligate of the rabble; and sometimes, when
he had not money to support even the expences of these receptacles,
walked about the streets till he was weary, and lay down in the
summer upon a bulk or in winter, with his associates in poverty,
among the ashes of a glass-house.29

This is not to say however that Grub Street writers were poverty-stricken
geniuses either, for most were indeed bad writers. Still, it would
have been nice to see more writers make out better financially
in this period.

Customer: Is there any genre that booksellers have particular
sales success in during the eighteenth century?

Tonson: That would be serial publications, which are writings
sold in parts and include everything from novels to newspapers.
Buying one big book at once for one big price scares people. However,
serial publishing, allows the bookseller to sell that one big
book in many small parts for a small price, which basically fools
the customer into thinking he is getting a good deal when he is
still ultimately paying the same price. The seller of course makes
a killing. Here's an example of a serial publication: Eprahim
Chamber's Cyclopedia, 512.5 sheets long, was sold in part
for 6 pence per week, which totaled up to 4 guineas overall, which
was the original price of the book anyway. Most of these serials
are of very low quality in terms of literary value, a fact that
was satirized in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones.30

Customer: What are some other examples of these serials?

Tonson: Well, little books of plays by John Dryden, Nathan Lee,
and others are sold in parts, each designed to keep the buyer
coming back. Newspaper selling is based on this strategy. Even
supplements are sold; a supplement isthe front pages of a newspaper,
published separately for preservation.

An
actual front page of The London Packet from the late 18th Century.31

Customer: What about book sales globally at this time? How does
that work?

Tonson: The order and priority of book sale diffusion is first
to local, then national, then international; global sales were
not the priority. Still, it is a busy and profitable trade, growing
especially as the century progressed. Here are some graphs illustrating
the expanse of the global book trade in the eighteenth century:

There is clearly a general increase in exports, while imports
are a little more variable, as England has less of a need for
importing, given the enormity of their own book production. The
top place that England exports to is Ireland, and for the first
time, exports also make it to North America and India. For imports,
Holland is the leader, accounting for 30% of bound and 61% of
unbound imports between 1700 and 1780. Germany and Italy contribute
a fair share of imports too.33

Customer: Where can I see price lists?

Tonson: There are some figures below with some comparison prices
for reference. Many books were quite expensive at this time due
to labor and cost, which definitely put pressure on the sellers
to sell a lot. Other written materials were quite affordable,
for if they were all ridiculously expensive, then nobody would
be buying them.